


Together

by DottyDot



Series: How It Could Happen [9]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, alternate parentage reveal, jonsa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-26
Updated: 2019-04-26
Packaged: 2020-02-04 14:56:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18606835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DottyDot/pseuds/DottyDot
Summary: "It was strange and right that it was Sansa here, Sansa fighting his demons, Sansa pulling him back from the darkness."





	Together

 

 

Everyone was mad at him except Sansa. 

When he arrived Sansa hadn't just hugged him, she held him, and allowed Jon to embrace her, much longer than was acceptable in Daenerys' eyes. He had tried to temper the Dragon Queen's anger, explained Sansa's attachment to him as an aftereffect of her trauma, although, Sansa had never shown any signs of weakness to him. 

The Northern Lords knelt to their new Queen as required but made their opinion of him felt with their harsh silence. They had no need to speak to him. They were as frigid as the North itself without any choice words. 

And then there was Arya. Of course she didn't hide the disgust on her face. She was too strong to tolerate weakness in others, let alone her glorified brother. She had hugged him and whispered into his ear "If  _your_  Queen raises a finger against Bran or Sansa, I will add her face to my collection." Her words held no fury, merely the reality that her blade did not distinguish between high and low-born, only those deserving or undeserving. Arya was not the girl he remembered, just as he was no longer the boy who had left Winterfell. He nodded dumbly. 

As soon as possible they had gone upstairs to talk as a family, an awkward gathering, everything spoken in stilted fashion. Arya stood against the wall, observing, while Bran stared at Jon with an unnerving glare that made Jon feel as if Bran knew all the secret thoughts he tried to hide, mostly from himself. 

When a very nervous, worried Sam arrived, Arya slipped out without a word, and Sansa tried to smile before leaving to supervise the distribution of food to the armies, animals for the dragons, a meal for their guests, any clothing they could find for the Dothraki who were not prepared for the cold. "We can talk tonight, Jon" she said, touching his shoulder as she went to fulfill every need she found. At least Sansa was still Sansa. That was one small comfort.

Much later, Jon came to her chambers and knocked. Sansa let him in, knowing he had been with Bran all evening and not gone to see the Targaryen, for she had learned some things from Lord Baelish and decided that she would need to know everything that happened within Winterfell's walls, whether the guests were called allies or not.

"Where is Brienne?" Jon asked, noting the knight's absence.

Sansa motioned Jon to a chair before her fire. "I asked her to keep an eye on Arya."

"I didn't think Arya needed protection."

"It isn't Arya I am worried about."

Jon nodded his head in agreement with that sentiment before speaking with more hesitancy than his custom. "I had thought you'd be the one angry with me." 

Sansa tried to reassure him, "Arya will see reason in time."

Jon didn't have a response to that. What was there to say? He had come back, longing for his family and found he did not recognize Arya or Bran. Foolish to not expect them to have changed, but they had both left him anxious, as if they had lost themselves even more than he had.  

"She doesn't understand--" Sansa stopped when Jon looked at her, and then tried again. "She doesn't know that we sometimes must--" Again she paused. She wanted to make it right for Jon, but Arya had ranted about faces and sticking people, and it wasn't that long ago that Arya suggested cutting off her face. Eventually Arya would come around. Arya would forgive Jon anything, she had always loved him best. But how long it would take Sansa wasn't sure, and she didn't want to make promises for a sister she was still getting to know again. The log on the fire burned through and fell, snapping Sansa back to the present. She had lost herself, as she had begun to do with increasing frequency while Jon was gone. She shook her head, clearing away her thoughts to make room for Jon. He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, his head in his hands. He looked how she felt, but Sansa always sat with a straight back and now tried to force herself to continue her sewing, to keep her eyes on her work, however futile that proved to be.

She could feel Jon willing her to understand what he was incapable of saying, and she would. She always did. How often had she grabbed him before, forced him to see what she saw, convince him of what she knew to be true, persuade him to do what must be done. His manner was quiet, patient, waiting for her to understand instead of insisting. Jon knew she would, she always did.

She looked at his hands, clean except for the dirt hidden under every fingernail. Some things dig in so deep they can't be washed away. This king who killed monsters of myth and led giants into battle and bent queens to his will and brought dragons to their defense, who had died and risen, now could not speak. He was at once all-powerful and broken. She recognized it all in his face, what he knew, what he had done, what he regretted. His fear was climbing over his hope, his pain was swallowing him whole. She would not demand or berate or question. He had accepted and forgiven and understood her, had done more than that for her, and she could not deny him anything. 

"You did what you had to do to come home." She told him, acknowledging what had happened and sealing whatever confessions he might have otherwise uttered. She could guess, she knew, but she did not need to hear it; she did not  _want_  to hear it. 

Jon couldn't help the rush of relief and the whispers of hope that filled him. Her thoughts had all flashed across her face, everything written in the light and darkness of her eyes, the creases between them, the cold and anger, the warmth and the love. She was saddened, weary, but would be kind. 

Sansa is Sansa. 

He released his breath. Burdens he had not cared to identify rolled away into the dark corners of the chamber. It was him and Sansa then, as they had been before. He had hoped for this but had not trusted himself to believe it would happen.

"It was necessary."

She sewed, away, now only looking at her work. "I know."

"Arya has changed" said Jon.

"She has and she hasn't. We all have in some way, haven't we?"

"Aye."

Sansa hummed quietly, allowing the warmth of the fire to surround them, for Jon's breathing to even out, for him to collect himself, however much he was able. "You spoke to Bran?"

Jon nodded, staring blankly at the flames.

"I am sorry."

"I knew I didn't know my mother, and now I learn I never knew my father either." 

Sansa knew he wasn't talking about Rhaegar. That man was not Jon's father. "If anything, it just proves how much father loved you. He fought a war to put his friend on the throne and then defied him for you. He risked everything."

Jon hadn't allowed himself to feel anything about his parentage. He hadn't had a chance to process it or understand all the ramifications, and now Sansa tried to guide his feelings, bringing him back to what he could know and hold onto as she always did.

"He let everyone, my own mother think what they would of him. He did that for you. He isn't a different person for this, it's just another evidence of how much he loved you."

Jon felt emotion rising to his throat, strangling him, incapable of escaping, he feared he would choke on it.

"Father did that for me once. In King’s Landing, he said he was a traitor, because he wanted to save us. Nothing mattered more than his children, and you are one of his children."

Jon shook his head. "I'm not a Stark. I always knew that. I've never been a Stark."

Now she looked at him. "You are. This doesn't change that any more than my marriages changed that for me. We are the Starks of Winterfell, the wolves of winter, and no one may claim us or make us anything but what we are."

"Sansa--"

"You are a Stark to me, Jon." She said, ending his arguments. Her sewing had been forgotten and now she put it on her seat before coming to kneel in front of him. She hesitated then kissed his forehead, silently promising him everything he had promised her not so long ago, although it was since buried by lifetimes.  _I trust you. I'll protect you. I love you._

He had thought he would not make it home in time or at all. He had and found his family more broken than he expected and the one parent he had ever known was not even his. And here also, the woman who always pulled him back to who he was, who now more than ever should loathe him, held him. She had taken him when he wanted to flee it all and forced him to stand, then stood by him as they crowned him king, while it was she who had won back Winterfell, by will and by swords. He had been nothing for so long, risen high, and then fell back to nothing, only to rise from the dead, confused, not knowing what he was anymore. He hadn't known who he was until she told him, over and over. Words and actions mingled into one continuous stream from her and no matter how much he didn't think he believed her, he had begun to.  _You are a Stark. You are a king. You are a good leader._ Tears came to his eyes, he wasn't sure for which reason, there were so many.

Sansa sat back on her heels, and he managed to keep his hands from following her. He wanted to stroke the fire in her hair, red flames that would never burn him. His fingers tensed, but he stopped himself. She was not his to touch. "It doesn't matter. I won't be surviving this war."

"Don't say that" Sansa wiped at the tears that had fallen on his cheeks, "Never even think it. You will come home to Winterfell, to Arya, to Bran." She stopped her motion and held his face until he looked her in the eyes. "You will come home to me." 

He nodded, dazed from exhaustion. He hadn't had a chance to breathe between one crisis and another. The only constant being his need to get back to Winterfell only to have his goal continually thwarted and new objectives arise. Secure allies, return home. Mine dragonglass, get his ship back. Find a wight, see Arya and Bran again. Face Cersei, defend the North. Convince Daenerys to come with him before she changed her mind, return to Sansa. 

He arrived and was immediately thrown back to the beginning. He had come so far, seen so much, and now he was back in the home of his childhood, rejected from belonging all over again. Yet he was also reclaimed, and Sansa refused to let him give up. 

It was strange and right that it was Sansa here, Sansa fighting his demons, Sansa pulling him back from the darkness. She still stared at him, refusing to allow him to disappear into himself. At Castle Black he had wanted to hide and wait to die. It was Sansa who insisted he be the man he was raised to be, who he always thought he was. He wanted to become lost, but she would not let him go, and now he would not want her to. 

"Your mother was right about me."

"No. She was wrong. We were both wrong." Sansa's hands had slipped from his face and now curled in her lap. 

"She thought I wanted Robb's birthright, that I was base and vile, now her son and husband are dead, and I am sitting in the Lord's chambers."

"Which you refused, after you refused to take Winterfell as yours. You never wanted anything that wasn't yours. You can't convince me that you are anything but good. You couldn't be otherwise if you tried."

Jon sighed. "Why are you kind? After everything, how can you still hope? How can you still care?"

"You know I'm sometimes angry and frustrated with you."

"Even when I don't deserve it?"

She smiled, "You  _do_  sometimes deserve it."

He huffed out a laugh in his embarrassed way. It felt good that she was almost saying "I told you so." How he wanted her to say it, so they could argue and then apologize, but she refused to give him that. She gave him no coldness only warmth, no harsh words, only love. He had never experienced that from a woman before, it was confusing and yet necessary to him now. She still sat before him, her hair, streaks of a fallen sun, resting on her shoulders. For the moment he was at peace, but he could hear the wings of the dragons overhead. And while the roar from the Dothraki encampment was muffled by the Keep, it reminded him of all the time they did not have. 

It would be best to be silent if he stayed before the fire with her, and wise to leave if he could not. He would not say anything he told himself. It was too soon, wrong, but when Sansa rose to return to her seat, the hands he had schooled into obedience reached out and took one of hers. He was mesmerized by it. Her hands were pale and soft. He wondered if the callouses on his fingers irritated her skin. "I do want things that aren't mine." 

He was always so gentle, so careful with her, she had been startled when he took her hand. And then he spoke in a voice she had never heard from him before. It was lower, rougher. His words filled the room, but his voice sank over her and into her, confusing, but also comforting. She tried to steady her voice, "What things?"

He waited, compelling her to look at him, knowing she would, knowing that if she did, she would see it all in his face, but even so, when she turned to him, he did not look away, and neither did she.

"One thing. It's just one thing that I want" he said. 

She hadn't looked away and did not change her expression as if he spoke of food or wine. "You don't want the throne." 

"I do not."

"You don't want to go to King's Landing."

"No."

"You do not want  _her_."

"No."

She nodded, still not looking away. 

"Sansa, I--"

She exhaled. "You don't want anything that isn't yours." 

"I do. I want--" he insisted.

"It is yours."

"Sa--"

"Jon, it is _yours_."

He pulled her to him as he stood. She came willingly, as if gravitating to him were right, as if neither one of them was silently panicking, as if she didn't part her lips searching for air that escaped her, as if bending her forehead to his was as familiar a motion as pulling a brush through her hair, as if this wasn't terrifying.

They could do nothing, say nothing. He had brought the allies they needed to their home, but they would no doubt be their enemies soon. They could not indulge hope, could not risk acting on impulse. 

As children they had fled their home to pursue dreams, rejecting what they knew, grasping for what they wanted. But they had been caught, thrown into flames, shaped into something new. Their lives were arcs of steel that had been cruelly bent until they were forced to no longer run _from_ but _to_. They were folded back onto each other, crushed together, until they could no longer be separated. They were one. 

They had both been brought to the beginning, and this time they would be wiser. They would protect Winterfell and their siblings as their father had not been able to. It was a second chance neither had truly believed was possible, but they had won it, and they would take their victory slowly, surely, step by step. 

They stood together before the fire, both knowing what they had and that they would not risk it, not yet. 

His hand did not shake the day he stood alone before charging cavalry, but it shook now, when it slipped around Sansa's waist. He pulled her even closer to him, until he was finally holding her. He just wanted to hold her. 

It was too much, and much too little. 

 

 

 


End file.
